He jerked his head back to John. “What am I going to do?” he hissed, panic on the verge of getting the best of him.
John looked around as though an answer would spring up out of nowhere. A few seconds later, a young lad in worn but clean clothes and a cap strode up to the empty table with a new box of donations.
“Excuse me,” John addressed him. “Do you know what happened to the things that were on this table?”
“Yes, I do, my lord,” the lad answered with a cheeky grin.
Harrison was so overwhelmed with relief that he didn’t care that the lad was being clever with him. “Where has it all gone?” he asked.
“That depends,” the lad answered, then waited for the banter to continue.
“Depends on what?” John asked, narrowing his eyes as if to tell the boy they wouldn’t stand for his cheek.
“On who carried what out,” the boy said.
Harrison let out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face. “Son, we really don’t have time for this.”
“Although we might have time to string you up by your ankles,” John growled.
The lad saw that the time for joking was over. “All the stuff from this table was taken out to three carts, and each of those was heading to a different orphanage.”
Harrison gaped at him. “Three different orphanages?”
“Yessir, my lord. One to Hope Orphanage in Hackney, and the other two to Mr. Siddel’s orphanage and to the Sisters of Perpetual Sorrow in Limehouse.”
Harrison and John exchanged a look. “Are you familiar with either of those places?” Harrison asked.
“No.” John shrugged and shook his head. “Are you?”
“No.” Harrison let out a breath of disappointment, deeply worried that his family ring was gone.
“I know where they all are,” the lad said.
Harrison and John both turned to him.
“What’s your name, lad?” John asked.
“Burt, my lord,” Burt said with a wide smile. “And for tuppence, I can take you to them all.”
The hope Harrison thought he’d lost returned. He reached into his pocket and took out a small coin. “There you go, Burt. And there will be more where that came from if we find a certain item I’ve lost.”
“What item is that, my lord?” Burt asked, a gleam in his eyes.
“Never you mind, scamp,” John answered, turning Burt by his shoulders toward the door. “Lead the way. We’ve got to recover Lord Linfield’s lost heart so he can propose to his sweetheart.”
“Oh, so it’s about love, is it?” Burt asked, hurrying ahead, Harrison and John behind him.
“It is,” Harrison admitted. And if he didn’t find the ring so that he could surprise Bea with the most perfect proposal ever, he didn’t know what he would do with himself.
Bea watched Harrison and John flitter around the far end of the room as Diana prattled on about how much better the world would be if women were in charge. She was utterly puzzled about what Harrison could possibly be doing, darting back and forth as he was. He didn’t seem to have any aim other than studying the items that had been donated. She couldn’t think what possible interest any of the donations could have for him, but there didn’t seem to be any other explanation for his searching.
And then he left. Just like that. Without saying goodbye to her. He and John rushed out, following a young lad called Burt that had been running errands for Bianca and some of the others all morning. As soon as Harrison left the room, Bea felt as though her heart fled with him.
“…and with all the new organizations forming around the issue of women’s suffrage, I think it’s only a matter of time before we see not only women gaining the vote, we’ll see them elected to Parliament as well. And once that happens—Heavens, Bea, are you paying any attention at all?” Diana asked with a huff, throwing the ribbon she’d just finished tying down on the table.
“What? Oh. Hmm?” Flustered and blushing, Bea dragged her eyes away from the doorway Harrison had disappeared out of and focused her gaze on Diana.
Diana tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips as she studied Bea. “The sun does not rise and set dependent on whether Harrison Manfred is in the room.”
“I know, I know,” Bea sighed, letting her shoulders drop as she tried to concentrate on her work. “It’s just that…I wish…if he would only….”
“Get on with it and propose marriage,” Diana finished, rolling her eyes. “Believe me. You make it hard for me to think of anything else.”
“I’m sorry.” Bea set aside her newly finished bow and gathered up materials to make another one. “I’m a bore, I know. It’s just that I love him so, and it makes me so anxious every time he runs out on me like this.”
“Well, wherever he was running off to,” Diana said, tilting her nose up and staring at the doorway, “he can’t be up to any good. Not if he’s with John.”
Bea nearly laughed in spite of herself. She and Diana made quite a pair. Both of them pined after the men they loved like silly schoolgirls, but they each had different ways of doing it. But Bea wasn’t sure whether it was more effective to long wistfully for a man or to pretend that she couldn’t stand him.
She had only begun to contemplate the question when the two middle-class ladies, Bianca’s neighbors in Clerkenwell, who had just carried in fresh armfuls of greenery launched into a curious conversation.
“Treacle all over everything,” the dark-haired one said, her eyes round. “It was a right mess to clean up.”
“Over their schoolbooks and everything?” the grey-haired one asked.
“As if the books were toast,” the dark-haired one answered with a nod. “The whole lot of them were ruined.”
“Books don’t come cheap,” the grey-haired one agreed. “Whoever done it should be horsewhipped, if you ask me.”
“What’s this all about?” Bianca asked as she walked up to the table to sort the new greenery.
“If you please, Lady Clerkenwell,” the grey-haired lady said, bobbing a quick curtsy. “Someone’s gone and pulled a prank at St. Joseph’s Orphanage.”
“They rigged a bucket of treacle to fall all over Sister Mary’s desk,” the dark-haired woman said.
“Good Lord.” Bianca’s eyes went wide. “That sounds like the sort of prank Rupert and I used to play on our German governess when we were children.”
“That’s exactly what it sounds like,” Diana agreed, sending Bea a look as though pranks were played on governesses all the time.
Bea assumed she was right, though she and her sisters had never been so bold as to tease their governess in any way. Madame Julienne was the closest thing they had had to a mother, after their own mother died in childbirth. But the idea of pranks had always fascinated Bea.
“A whole pile of books was ruined, my lady,” the dark-haired woman continued to tell the story to Bianca. “And books are precious, they are.”
“I agree,” Bianca said in her take-charge voice. “I’ll be certain to pay a visit to St. Joseph’s to assess their needs, and I’ll purchase all new books for them as soon as our party and the Christmas holidays are over.”